The Bookweaver's Daughter

by Malavika Kannan

  “Temperus!” I screamed, but the flames didn’t come.

  Instead, the Spider’s curse erupted from my very soul.

  My mother was screaming, beating at my father’s chest. Her eyes were open graves. The venom in her gaze ripped me open, ensnaring my insides, squeezing at my pulsating, throbbing heart.

  I screwed my eyes shut against the hallucinations, but the Spider’s curse was slicing through me with a vengeance, and I had fallen to the floor—

  “Reya!” Nina shrieked as the Spider reached for her, but I could barely hear her. I could already see her body—still and lifeless and cold, her black hair spilling like blood—as pain pinched the edges of my vision. Darting illusions flitted through my mind, threatening to devour me from within—

  The real Nina was slashing with her sword, but with a snap of the Spider’s fingers, the blade flew out of her grasp and across the room.

  Exhaustion made my bones liquid, but I staggered towards her, ignoring the fact that my nerves were splitting, that the Spider was a good ten yards ahead of me, that we were both about to die.

  I reached her just as the Spider lifted its arms. I could see the end, but my breath was surprisingly even.

  My body would be her shield, just as Nina had shielded me many times before. My eyes glanced around—not for a way out, but for something beautiful to look at. One last drop of purity to give me strength for the coming moment.

  Right before the Spider’s metal body touched mine, I focused on the stormy grey of Nina’s eyes.

  “Reya!”

  It happened all at once. I opened my eyes, and my heart earthquaked, because I saw him.

  I saw him.

  Naveen’s hands opened, and the water rose like a column of molten glass. He was expressionless, but a terrible fury roiled in the backs of his eyes as he released the power all at once, taking the Spider by the surprise and knocking it to the floor.

  “Get out of here!” I gasped. I leaned against the wall and felt myself sliding down, knees buckled uselessly beneath me. “Naveen, there are more soldiers coming …”

  “We all have a choice,” he told me, his voice strangely even. It was the last thing he said to me.

  His head blurred out of focus. My mouth shaped his name uselessly as I passed out, water flowing like poetry.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  At some point that night, my bedroom door was locked, and guards were stationed in the corridors beyond. Apart from that, the mahal was quiet. It was a painful, icy silence, like a final prayer.

  Devendra visited me shortly after I was locked back in my chambers. His face was white as he stalked towards me. His long legs crossed the room in two strides, so I didn’t have enough time to pretend I was asleep. “Kandhari,” he said.

  I ignored him.

  “Reya,” he said, taking me by surprise: he’d never called me by my name before. I turned around.

  “Here to gloat?” I croaked, my voice cracking from disuse. “Save it.”

  The prince looked terrible. His angular cheekbones, normally handsome, made him look sick, skull-like. “That’s not why I’m here,” Devendra said. “Look. What you think you saw there today—”

  “Are you referring to that delightfully illegal magic trick? I wonder what Daddy’s going to think about that.”

  His eyes flashed dangerously purple. For the first time, Devendra looked terrified, and I remembered how much his father’s honor meant to him. If Jahan found out that his son was one of the very Mages he so hated, Devendra would be crushed.

  “That wasn’t magic—” he started angrily. “Please,” I interrupted coldly. “I know magic when I see it. How long have you known?”

  He recoiled. “I didn’t,” he insisted. “I don’t know how it happened. I can’t be a Mage.”

  I smirked, a little, in spite of everything.

  “Welcome to the club,” I said. “If we find enough members, maybe we can spring for matching turbans.”

  Devendra reddened. “This isn’t a joke,” he snarled. “You have no idea what’s at stake. This is bigger than you. This is bigger than anything you could ever imagine—”

  “No, you have no idea what’s at stake,” I snapped. “What your father wants me to do—it’s not right. Magic isn’t supposed to be abused like that. It will destroy whatever balance this kingdom has ever known.”

  Devendra pulled himself to his full height. His eyes were filled with malevolent passion, promising a wild and shadowy vengeance.

  “I am the imperial commander of Kasmira, damn it,” he shouted. “You won’t tell anyone what you saw, or I will—”

  “Kill me?” I finished, tears rising to my eyes. But this time, they weren’t tears of grief. A strangled chuckle escaped me, then another, until I had burst into laughter—maniacal, desperate, end-of-the-world laughter.

  “Oh, Devendra,” I choked out, between giggles. “I’m already dead.”

  Now, hours or possibly days later, the smile had faded from my face at last. I eventually noticed that Ink Soul had disappeared from my desk, which could only mean that Sharati had confiscated my traitorous manuscript, taking with her my only lifeline within these walls.

  I should have been nervous, but the missing Ink Soul was the least of my worries. In spite of everything that had happened, what I regretted most was that my room had no clock.

  Because without it, it was impossible to tell how much time had passed. The faint cracks of light from the shuttered windows had stretched and bent like wax, leading me to think that the sun had risen multiple times over, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Someone had been sliding meals through a slot in my door. Now those meals stained the opposite wall, having been hurled in my fury. Day-old korma dripped gelatinously down the wallpaper, its bowl in shards down below.

  The slot opened again, jerking me from my thoughts. There was a scraping noise as a bowl of korma slid through, followed by two bits of naan bread, one of which fell off the tray and flopped dismally beneath the bed.

  In three lunges, I crossed the room and struck the door so hard that the hinges rattled.

  “Wait!” I screamed, my voice rusty. “What time is it?”

  There was no answer.

  I seized the tray and rammed it into the door. “WHAT?” I smashed the cup. “TIME?” The bowl. “IS?” The spoon. “IT?”

  The saucer cracked into a thousand pieces, a few of them piercing my skin. I gasped and recoiled. And then, as blood pooled in my palms, that’s when I lost it.

  The lock clicked, and the door opened at last. I looked up to see Lady Sharati, her nose slightly wrinkled at the stench. There was a faded bruise across her chin from where Aisha had punched her. “You can stop screaming now,” she said.

  I tried to summon anger, but I couldn’t. I had been so starved for information that even Sharati’s annoyed face was almost welcome.

  She looked at my hands, and something in her gaze seemed to soften. “Clean up,” she ordered. “I’ll send the servants for your cuts.”

  “Sharati,” I said, before she could leave. “What—what time is it?”

  The Mage regarded me for a moment. “It’s noon,” she replied at last. “It’s been two days.”

  At the sound of her bell, Sita and Trisha entered the room. My breath caught in my throat. “Where’s Kira?” I demanded. The two girls wouldn’t look at me as they set to work bandaging my cuts. I ignored the sting of the antiseptic.

  “Tell me,” I repeated, my voice deadly calm, before it broke into a shout: “Where is she?”

  Trisha gave a start and dropped the cleaning alcohol. It seeped through the carpet, turning the air pungent. “Kira Chadav has been taken, miss,” Sita whispered. “They’re questioning her because of her brother.”

  Because of Naveen. Because of me.

  All I could think about was the kindness Kira had shown me during my first weeks in the palace: bringing me tea, slipping me encouragement. She and Naveen were the first friends I’d had sinc
e Nina. And now she was in danger.

  I thought bathing would make me feel better. I was wrong. The cuts on my palms stung fiercely as the bandages loosened, and my servants were no help: Trisha seemed perpetually on the verge of tears, while Sita stared determinedly away, tossing a towel haphazardly in my direction.

  We had almost built a relationship. Now they hated me. The thing was, I didn’t blame them.

  —

  The library reminded me of an open wound.

  The dust had been swept hastily to one side of the room, the broken shelves piled precariously like bones. I tried not to think about how empty the place felt without Naveen’s reassuring presence beside mine.

  For the next half hour, Lady Sharati didn’t stop pacing.

  “It’s time to prepare to perform vayati,” Sharati said. My throat felt tight, like I’d just swallowed something very hot, or very cold.

  “Tomorrow,” she continued, “there will be a massive ceremony held in the throne room. His majesty has invited nobles from all over Kasmira to attend. It will be the pinnacle of his reign.”

  She cleared her throat, enunciating every word. “Your vayati must be perfect. We will draft the spell today. And tomorrow, you will weave the final lines in the presence of Jahan, thus bringing it to life.”

  I felt sickened. Writing the final line was like sealing the fate.

  “There are three requirements for vayati,” I reminded her. “It can’t be for my benefit, it has to be in Ancient Kasmiri, and I have to unlock in my Yogi state.”

  “Indeed,” said Sharati. “You’ll notice we’re a little short on Ancient Kasmiri translators, so you’ll be needing this.” She pulled out the massive copy of Bhasa Pratana. I had a fleeting memory of Naveen holding the book with reverence, and my mouth felt dry.

  Sharati opened the sprawling pages of Runic Code, and I ignored my rising sense of panic. “All right,” I said, as though I wrote monumental stories in an extinct language every day. “And the Yogi state?”

  “It cannot be forcibly induced,” admitted Sharati. “Your training thus far will give you the stamina you need to maintain the state. And as for awakening it—well, his Majesty has no shortage of ways to persuade you to do so.”

  Naveen. Nina. Kira. Fear prickled in my chest.

  I took a deep breath. “Let’s begin, then,” I said.

  —

  I raised my pen to the parchment.

  He was immortal.

  The scratch of nib on parchment reminded me of sword against stone, against metal, against flesh. I closed my eyes against the memories, tucking them into the back of my mind. There would be no more bloodshed, not after this.

  His glory threw the rays of the sun into despair. King Jahan Zakir had the entire world at his feet.

  My throat constricted as the words poured out of my pen. Each letter seemed to hurt as it came out.

  I couldn’t shake the awful feeling that I was dooming my kingdom.

  Farkandh, Kampi, and Indira fell like crushed saplings, one by one. Blood lapped the king’s feet—blood of the enemies— their final tributes to their rightful master.

  Ragged scraps of words sailed through my brain, but they did not sing to me like they usually did. Instead they throbbed, each word marching painfully and reluctantly through my wrist, into the pen, and onto the parchment.

  Sharati helped me decide on the final sentence to complete the spell. “It has to be perfect,” she warned me.

  For the immortal leader was Jahan Zakir, who would lead Kasmira into a golden age that the bards would sing of for ages to come.

  I hated every word.

  The words linked together and flowed like water, poetic and radiant. They were rhythmic, empty syllables. But there was no pretending: I knew that when woven together, translated into Ancient Kasmiri, and fused with magic, they could bring down a kingdom that had stood unwavering since the beginning of time.

  I thought, for a moment, about my missing Ink Soul. More than anything, I wanted words of my father for comfort. My father, who had taught me to love words before he taught me to weave them. My father, who left too soon and left an enormous legacy behind him. My father, who would be heartbroken to see what had befallen the kingdom he loved.

  At last, Sharati nodded. “This will do,” she said. There was a pause in which we sized each other up. As I stared into her cat-like eyes, I tried to summon my usual rage against the cruel woman who had tormented me for the past months, but I found nothing. Because Sharati, like me, was just a pawn. And we were both playing Jahan’s game.

  “It’s nearly midnight,” Lady Sharati noted. She was right: the candles had dripped down to greasy stubs, and the shadows had sunk low. “You’d better rest. You’ll need your full strength for tomorrow.”

  Exhausted, I followed her to my quarters. For a fleeting moment, I imagined jumping on her back again, throwing her to the floor, and making another run for it. But the idea disappeared as quickly as it had come. There was nowhere left to run, anyways.

  “Good night, Bookweaver,” said Sharati, surprising me: it was the first time she’d ever said something remotely kind. Before she could lock the door, I turned around.

  “Wait,” I said. “You’re a Mage, too. You’re going to suffer if my vayati works. What do you get out of it?”

  Her eyes were blank, or perhaps it was just the torchlight reflected in them.

  “Honor and pride in serving my kingdom,” she said at last. “What his majesty represents is greater than you. It’s greater than me. It’s something the thugs you kept company with could never understand.”

  She finally broke eye contact as she locked the door behind her. “And tomorrow, you will serve your kingdom as well.”

  —

  My father visited me in my dreams that night.

  In my sleep, the Bookweaver was not the proud, laughing man I chose to remember him as. That night he was his hunched, crippled self, eyebrows furrowed in despair.

  “Father?” I said. He looked at me, and his lips turned down in disappointment.

  “What’s wrong?” I pressed.

  “What’s wrong?” he repeated. He sounded brittle, disbelieving. “Reya, everything is wrong. You let me die. And now you’re helping the one who killed me become a thousand times stronger.”

  I bit my lip. “Father, I—”

  “I know you think you have no way out,” he continued. “But what did your mother always teach you?”

  “There’s always a way out if you’re persistent enough to find it,” I chanted obediently along with him. His voice sounded like mine, but our voices echoed, clashing with strange discordance. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

  “I know that. But you don’t understand—” I began.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said dismissively. “You have a second chance to repair everything. You can save me.” As he spoke, he opened his palm. Resting inside it was another pearl, gleaming faintly with what I now recognized to be magic.

  “A second chance,” I echoed quietly.

  My father looped a thread around the pearl with the deft fingers of a writer, forming a necklace. “May I?” he asked, moving to fasten it at my throat. My head started to nod automatically, but the words wouldn’t come.

  The pearl was still sitting in his palm. For a moment, I was seized with the urge to take it, to tie it around my neck, be the daughter from the Fringes once more. That was who I was: the daughter who tended mango trees as she tended for her own father, sweet and selfless and good.

  But the problem was, I was also the daughter who resented her own father. I was the daughter who led soldiers to the Bookweaver’s front door. I was the daughter who was about to burn his legacy into ashes.

  “No,” I said. “You may not.”

  The Bookweaver looked like I’d slapped him. “What?”

  “I am about to change my life,” I said. “And I will not be burdened by you again. I am taking this journey alone.”

 
; The pain was palpable in his eyes. “I never wanted to burden you, Reya,” he insisted. “And I’m so sorry you felt that way. All I wanted was to guide you.”

  “Guide me?” I repeated angrily. “Some guidance. You didn’t teach me a damn thing. You left me in the dark about everything that mattered. You left me completely alone.”

  “That was for your own protection.” He was pleading with me. “I didn’t want to lead you into the murk of my world. You had enough darkness of your own.”

  “Well, that was a mistake,” I said in a tight little voice I could scarcely recognize. “I’m not someone you’d be proud of. I used to be glad you were gone, because you wouldn’t see who I’d become.”